On War & Peace:
Changed mind on Iraq pullout, not about political solution

Q: Your presidential campaign has a political ad about Iraq:

NARRATOR: "In a world this dangerous, with a crisis as tough as Iraq, hard truths need to be told. Joe Biden says this war must end now."

Q: In 2005, you said: "We can
call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out--equally a mistake." You've changed your mind?

A: Well,
I have changed my mind, but I haven't changed my mind in any fundamental way. If you go back, I [always said] you need a political solution. And there's time, I thought back then, if the administration had been wiser, to generate a political
solution allowing us to pull out. Now the situation we're in, if the president continues to insist on this strategically-flawed notion of being able to establish a central government that can control Iraq before we leave, I ain't buying into that.

Source: Meet the Press: 2007 "Meet the Candidates" series
Sep 9, 2007

On War & Peace:
v

Q: Will you insist on a firm withdrawal date?

A: I will insist on a target date to get American combat forces out, all but those who are necessary to protect our civilians that are remaining there, and to deal with al-Qaeda.

Q:
If the president does not accept a firm withdrawal date, will you vote to cut off funding?

A: I will vote, as long as there's a single troop in there, for the money necessary to protect them, period.

Q: Many Democrats who will vote in the
primary will say "The only way to stop this war is to cut off funding. Everything else is small talk, and unless you're willing to do that, you will not be the Democratic nominee."

A: You need 67 votes to cut that off. All 51 votes will do is delay
building these vehicles [with armor to protect troops]. And if you tell me I've got to take away this protection for these kids in order to win the election, some things aren't worth it. Some things are worth losing over. That would be worth losing over.

Source: Meet the Press: 2007 "Meet the Candidates" series
Sep 9, 2007

On Abortion:
No public funding for abortion; it imposes a view

Q: Are you still opposed to public funding for abortion?

A: I still am opposed to public funding for abortion.
It goes to the question of whether or not you're going to impose a view to support something that is not a guaranteed right but an affirmative action to promote.

On Abortion:
Supports partial-birth abortion ban, but not undoing Roe

Q: You supported the ban on partial-birth abortions or late-term abortions.

A: I did and I do.

And the Supreme Court came and basically upheld that ban, and you criticized the Supreme Court.

Q: They upheld the ban, and then they engaged in what we
lawyers call dicta that is frightening. You had an intellectually dishonest rationale for an honest justification for upholding the ban. I know this is going to sound arcane--they blurred the distinction between the government's role in being involved
in the first day and the ninth month. They became paternalistic, talking about the court could consider the impact on the mother and keeping her from making a mistake. This is all code for saying, "Here we come to undo Roe v. Wade." What they did is not
so much the decision, the actual outcome of the decision, it's what attended the decision that portends for a real hard move on the court to undo the right of privacy. That's what I'm criticizing about the court's decision.

On Abortion:
Accepts Catholic church view that life begins at conception

Q: You have changed your position on abortion. When you came to the Senate, you believed that Roe v. Wade was not correctly decided and that you also believed the right of abortion was not secured by the Constitution.
Why did you change your mind?

A: Well, I was 29 years old when I came to the US Senate, and I have learned a lot.
Look, I'm a practicing Catholic, and it is the biggest dilemma for me in terms of comporting my religious and cultural views with my political responsibility.

Q: Do you believe that life begins at conception?

A: I am prepared to accept my church's view. I think it's a tough one. I have to accept that on faith. That's why the late-term abortion ban, where there's clearly viability.

On Budget & Economy:
Invest in new programs by ending war & eliminating tax cuts

Q: On your website you say about programs for energy research, health insurance, tuition deductions--all noble goals for Democrats, but it's more money, more money. Where you going to get it?

A: First of all, we're going to end this war. It's
$100 billion a year we're spending.

Eliminate the tax cuts for people making over a million bucks --that's $85 billion a year.

Eliminate the tax break for investment on dividends--$195 billion.

We have a fancy word--a new "paradigm" [about
crime, health, and energy]: Investment in these areas saves money. But you need start-up dollars. I'd start off with $220 billion a year by the tax cuts and ending the war.

Q: But, senator, we have a deficit. We have Social Security and Medicare
looming.

A: The answer is you have to put it all on the table. We put Social Security on the right path for 60 years. Social Security's not the hard one to solve. Medicare, that is the gorilla in the room, and you've got to put all of it on the table.

On Civil Rights:
Civil unions ok; gay marriage is probably inevitable

Q: In November 2003, you were asked, "Do you believe gay marriage is inevitable?" And you responded, "I'm not sure. I think probably it is."

A: Well, I think it probably is because social mores change.
But I don't think the government can dictate the definition of marriage to religious institutions. But government does have an obligation to guarantee that every individual is free of discrimination. And there's a distinction.
I think government should not be able to dictate to religions the definition of marriage, but on a civil side, government has the obligation to strip away every vestige of discrimination as to what individuals are able to do in terms
of their personal conduct.

On Principles & Values:
Apologized for saying Barack Obama was clean and articulate

Q: You have gotten in trouble with your language. When you said that Barack Obama was [the first African-American candidate who was] clean and articulate, you apologized for it. The Washington Post wrote: "The only thing standing between
Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth. His Achilles' heel is his mouth." Do you have a problem?

A: Look, this is a very rough game. My referring to Barack as articulate, it was a mistake.
The good thing about being around a long time is people have a basis upon which to judge you. And I didn't find any serious person in the civil rights community, because of my long history and long support for civil rights, thinking that I was trying to
insult Barack Obama in any way. I didn't find anyone suggesting that anything else I have said goes to the heart of whether or not my record is being undercut by what I've stated. But it is true. It is true that my candor sometimes get me in trouble.

Q: Sometimes your embellishment gets you in trouble. In 1988 you withdrew as a candidate, because, as was written at the time: " Biden's trouble began with the revelation that he had used, without attribution, long portions of a moving address by the
British Labor Party leader, Neil Kinnock. It emerged he had also used passages from the speeches of Robert Kennedy & Hubert Humphrey. It was revealed that Biden had been disciplined as a first-year law student for using portions of a law review article
in a paper without proper attribution and was hit again by a videotape of his appearance in New Hampshire in which he misstated several facts about his academic career." That was a problem.

A: It was.

Q: And you learned from it?

A: I did. It was 20
years ago, and I learned from it. People have had 20 years to judge since then whether or not I am the man they see or I am what I was characterized as being 20 years ago. I learned a lot from it, and, let me tell you, it was a bitter way to learn it.

On War & Peace:
Start moving combat troops out of harm's way now

Q: Your vote on Thursday was reported as: "The Senate approved $124 billion Iraq war spending bill that would force troop withdrawals to begin as early as July 1." Why did you vote for a bill that had a timetable for withdrawal?

A: That language is
actually the language that Carl Levin and I drafted, which said that, "Mr. President, you got to start moving combat troops out of harm's way now." This tries to get this president to change his strategy. He operates on the premise that, if we put enough
troops in the middle of a civil war, we can give breeding room to a group of people in Baghdad to get together and form a strong central government that's a democracy. That will not happen in your lifetime or mine. I said that four years ago; I say it
now. The only rational purpose for troops in Iraq now: train Iraqis, prevent al-Qaeda from occupying large chunks of territory, and we should begin to decentralize the government. That's the underlying essence of what the language in this bill is about.

On War & Peace:
Not micromanaging war to authorize & define mission

Q: When you were here in January, I asked you about Iraq, and you said:

BIDEN: I think it is unconstitutional to say we're going to tell you, "You can go, but we're going to micromanage the war." When we wrote the Constitution, the intention
was to give the commander in chief the authority how to use the forces when you authorize him to be able to use the forces. (Videotape, January 7, 2007)

Q: [By linking spending authorization to a withdrawal date,] aren't
you now micromanaging?

BIDEN: Not at all. We have authority to tell him how to use the forces. We have a responsibility to tell him what the mission is. He does not have the authority to engage in a mission of the use of our force that we do not
authorize. And that's the thrust of what we're trying to do here. We're trying to fundamentally change what this president is using our forces for. He's in the midst of a civil war with a flawed objective of establishing a strong central government.

Q: There has been an evolution in your thinking because in 2005 you said, "We can call it quits and withdraw [from Iraq]. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to
wait us out-equally a mistake." You're now setting a deadline.

A: No, we're not setting a deadline. Read what the bill says. It says the target date, left up to the generals to determine whether or not it is appropriate to withdraw all forces.

Q:
Well, a target date is setting a deadline.

A: No, no, but it leaves forces behind. We're trying to change the mission. The problem here is this is also a moving target. I also called for more troops a couple years ago, in order to stop a civil war.
Once the civil war began I said all the troops in the world cannot settle a civil war. So what I'm having to respond to, like everyone else, is the president's initiatives and his failures that required different answers at different times.

On War & Peace:
Think about the decade after Iraq, not just the day after

Q: You said in Oct. 2002: "We must be clear with the American people that we are committing to Iraq for the long haul; not just the day after, but the decade after." Do you believe we'll be in Iraq for a decade?

A: Before we went to war,
I wrote a report saying the decade after, and everyone was talking about the day after. And the point I was making was, if you went in and used force, which he should not have done when he did it, that we were committing and signing on to a decade.
That was the minimum requirement. I also pointed out we needed more troops. I also pointed out at that time we would not be greeted with open arms. I also pointed out at that time oil would not pay for this. It was a warning to the president.
The objective of us giving [Bush the Iraq war] authority was to get inspectors back in, bring the pressure of the world community. [And to decide] are we going to lift sanctions on Iraq or are we going to put more sanctions on Iraq? That was the context.

On War & Peace:
There will be a residual force left in Iraq

Q: Some of your opponents in the Democratic primary say there will be no residual force left in Iraq?

A: They are mistaken. They are making a mistake that is not practical. I don't know how that can work.

Q: Senators Reid & Feingold have a bill
that says: "No funds appropriated may be expended to continue the deployment in Iraq after March 31st, "2008." Do you support that?

A: No.

Q: Why?

A: Here's where we may end up. This president makes it so difficult to reach the objective--which
is to leave Iraq, leaving behind a country secure within its own borders, not a threat to its neighbors, that is a loosely federated republic. It may get so bad that we do not have that option, and the only option we have available to us is to withdraw
and try to contain the civil war inside Iraq. We are not there yet. And until we reach that point, I am not prepared to say there are no circumstances under which, after a date certain, we would not have a single troop inside of Iraq.

On War & Peace:
In 2002 Saddam posed a threat of purchasing a nuclear bomb

Q: In 2002 you said about Saddam: "He must be dislodged from his weapons or dislodged from power."

A: I was correct about that. I also said at the time that I did not think he had weaponized his material, but he did have these stockpiles everywhere.

A: It turned out they didn't, but everyone in the world thought he had them. The weapons inspectors said he had them. What he did with them, who knows?

Q: Gen. Zinni, when he heard the discussion about WMD that
Saddam had, said, "I've never heard that" in any of the briefings he had as head of the Central Command. How could you as a US Senator be so wrong?

A: I wasn't wrong. When asked about aluminum tubes, I said they're for artillery. I don't believe
they're for cascading.

Q: But you said Saddam was a threat.

A: He was a threat.

Q: In what way?

A: If Saddam was left unfettered, with sanctions lifted and billions in his coffers, then he had the ability to purchase a tactical nuclear weapon.

On War & Peace:
Regrets his war vote because Bush misused war authority

Q: In May 2003 you said, "There was sufficient evidence to go into Iraq." Then in 2004 you said, "I voted to give the president the authority to use force in Iraq. I still believe my vote was just." Then in Iowa in 2007, running for President, you said,
"It was a mistake. I regret my vote."

A: That's unfair. I said it was a mistake between, and you make it sound like I went to Iowa and all of a sudden [changed my position].

Q: Well, there was a change from being a just vote to a mistake.

A:
Yeah, because I learned more. We were told at the time that all these Iraqi generals were ready to step up and take on Saddam. We had commitments at the time from the president that he would not move without the international community. There were a
whole lot of things that changed.

Q: So what do you regret?

A: I regret having believed that this administration had any competence. If I'd known they were going to misuse the authority we gave them, I would have never ever given them the authority.

On War & Peace:
Vote for war allowed war only after all else failed

Q: Should you have sought out people who had a dissenting view on WMD?

A: Oh, I did. I called every intelligence agency before the Foreign Relations Committee, had them all sit there at once. I pointed out to all my colleagues who came that there was
vast disagreement among the intelligence community.

Q: But despite the doubts you heard, you voted for the war.

A: I voted to give the president the authority to avoid a war. We had a more constrictive amendment, but he had 55 votes no matter what.

A: It allowed the president to go to war. It did not authorize him to go to it. You make it sound like it said, "Mr. President, go to war." It said, "Mr
President, don't go to war." It said "go to the United Nations. Try to get a deal. Get the inspectors back in. Tell us that that's what you're about to do. And, Mr. President, if all else fails, you have authority to use force." That's what it said.

On War & Peace:
US worse off than before Saddam because US lost credibility

Q: Do you believe we're safer now that Saddam is gone?

A: I believe we are less safe as a nation now because what has happened is the conduct of this war has so badly damaged our readiness.
It has limited our credibility around the world and limited our flexibility in terms of the use of force. We could end the carnage in Darfur tomorrow, but why aren't we doing it? In part we're not doing it because we are so tied down.
We could fundamentally change the dynamic in Afghanistan. Why aren't we doing it? Because we are tied down. Saddam was a butcher, the world's happy, may he burn in hell. He deserves it.
But in terms of our global positioning, our geopolitical strategy, we are worse off than we were when we had Saddam sitting there because of the impact on our military and the impact on our credibility.

On War & Peace:
Partitioning Iraq is inevitable, as shown by history

Q: The Iraq Study Group said that your idea of partitioning Iraq is, is wrong, and would result in even wider civil war. James Baker, the chairman of that committee, said that he's talked to experts and they believe it would trigger a "huge civil war."
Major cities are mixed between the Shiites and the Sunnis and that basically your plan just wouldn't work.

A: Basically, Baker's in a minority. Henry Kissinger & Madeleine Albright have signed onto the plan. If you look at the Baker report, it goes on
to say "We may get where Biden is talking about." Guess what? We're getting there. What is this administration implicitly acknowledging by building a wall? They're building a wall, and they're talking about a centralized government? There's never been a
time in history where there's been a self-sustaining cycle of sectarian violence that has ended even remotely reasonably without a federated system. Never. What for the 1st time in history is different? There's an inevitability to what I'm talking about.